VOL.94/2026.05

 

The Third Chapter of the Korea Picture Book Award:
The New Landscape of Korean Picture Books

 

2025.12.01

 

The Introduction of the “Korea Picture Book Award” and the Winners in 2025

 

The “Korea Picture Book Award,” jointly organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism (MCST) and the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (KPIPA), marks its 3rd year since its launch in 2023. This year, a total of 9 titles were selected: 2 Grand Prize winners (one each in Fiction and Nonfiction), 6 Special Prize winners (2 Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Awards and 4 President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Awards), and 1 Rookie of the Year Award recipient. Eligible works were picture books created, published, and distributed in Korea between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. The total prize amount was KRW 112 million - KRW 85 million awarded to authors, and KRW 3 million granted to each publisher of the winning titles (KRW 27 million in total). The award was designed to support two pillars simultaneously: the sustainability of authors’ creative work and the capacity of publishers for rights management and international development.

 

 

A close look at the award-winning titles reveals a clear portrait of the current landscape of Korean picture books. Images drive the narrative, and the physicality of the books reinforces it. Local places and memories are translated into universal reading experiences through devices such as objects’ perspectives, graphic rhythms, folds, and panoramas. The text is restrained, and the pacing, pauses, and repetitions across page turns create a rhythm when reading. Layered onto this is the philosophy of “Universal Design (UD)” and “Universal Design for Learning (UDL),” allowing anyone, regardless of age, language, or reading level, to enjoy picture books. Through tactile and spatial cues, reading expands into a multisensory experience. In particular, the fiction category has deepened emotional resonance through narrative experimentation, while the nonfiction category has opened new intersections between knowledge and art by combining factual organization with aesthetic composition. Korean picture books naturally extend into classrooms, exhibitions, and community programs, establishing themselves as models that originate locally and are read globally. These characteristics can be observed in the award-winning titles organized by theme.

 

 

Image-Led Ecological and Environmental Sensibility: Grand Prize Winners in Fiction and Nonfiction

 

A DOT, A LINE, AND A BIRD (Changbi Publishers), which received the Grand Prize in the Fiction category, is largely driven by the power of “image and rhythm.” Using the motif of birds that vanish after colliding with urban structures, the book creates a sense of rhythm through the variations of dots, lines, and forms across its pages. With a minimalist visual language that calibrates tension and pause, the accumulated kinetic energy evokes a heartbeat that pulses with the themes of “solidarity” and “coexistence.” By merging contemporary issues of environmental awareness and respect for life with an aesthetic form, the work delivers a compelling social message that resonates across cultural boundaries, without relying on language.

 

 

What Wonderful Beetles (Iyagikot Publishing), the Grand Prize winner in the Nonfiction category, boldly expands the shapes and patterns of beetles into a large-format canvas. Its compositions, grounded in precise observation, are harmonized with theatrical timing and comic beats. Balancing informational content with narrative pleasure, the work restores the “joy of learning new things.” If supplemented with information on local native species, it could be readily adapted for localized editions in various countries.

 

 

Participatory Nonfiction that Awakens the Senses: Special Prize (Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Award)

 

When We Touch the Elephant (Woorischool), winner of the Special Prize (Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Award), is both a record and a creative picture book born from a collaborative project in which visually impaired children and the artist explored an elephant through “imagination, touch, and expression.” The work subverts the long-standing parable of “blind men and an elephant (盲人摸象),” presenting differences in sensory perception not as deficiencies, but as sources of creativity.

 

 

If A DOT, A LINE, AND A BIRD stimulates the senses through the rhythm of images that operate independently of text, What Wonderful Beetles throws the gates of sensory experience wide open through its bold close-ups. Because these works turn the act of reading itself into an “experience,” they seamlessly connect with inclusive programs in museums and public libraries.

 

Place and Memory: Reading History from a New Perspective ? Special Prize (President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Award)

 

The Memory of the Building (Sakyejul Publishing), which received the Special Prize (President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Award), brings readers to a “place” that bears witness to the dark era of Korean democracy. Its setting, the “Namyoung-dong Anti-Communist Branch of the Korean National Security Headquarters,” was a site of interrogation and torture during the authoritarian period, and is now preserved and utilized as the National Museum of Korean Democracy. The book’s method of “reading the time of a place” by juxtaposing architectural details with narrative elements connects naturally to themes of civic education and even to possibilities for city branding.

 

 

The Guardians of Gyeongbokgung (Uhheung-Project), which also received the Special Prize (President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Award), is set in Gyeongbokgung Palace (built in 1395), the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty. By combining the palace’s symbolic patterns and guardian creatures with imagination, the work transforms “living heritage” into a contemporary narrative. Its strategy of linking traditional architecture and symbolic patterns with a child’s imaginative play demonstrates the distinctive strength of Korean picture books in “contemporizing cultural heritage.”

 

 

A Boy with a Bronze Helmet (Bombyeott Publishing Co.), also another winner of the Special Prize (President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Award), adopts as its narrator the Ancient Greek Bronze Helmet - a national treasure preserved in the National Museum of Korea - that was awarded to Sohn Kee-Chung, the Korean marathoner who won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but only much later reclaimed it in his own name. Told from the object’s perspective, this historical picture book captures a boy’s experience during the colonial era. Sohn’s story - also remembered for the incident in which the Japanese flag on his uniform was concealed during the medal ceremony - condenses the tensions of colonial reality and identity into a narrative that resonates across borders of nationality and era, allowing anyone to empathize with it.

 

 

The Moment When the Observation of Nature Turns Into Awe

 

Cheer (Maummoja), another recipient of the Special Prize (President of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea Award), presents a nature narrative that reveals the variations of the four seasons and the sanctity of life through visual storytelling with minimal reliance on text. Depicting the seasonal flow, from the stillness of winter to the buds and forests of spring, the book visualizes the breath of the four seasons through a rhythm of color, form, blank space, repetition, and pause, sculpturally amplifying the emotions of “care?growth?expansion.” When opening its cover, a single tree fills the reader’s field of vision, and with each turn of the page, the “growing time” of life becomes palpable, allowing the title, “cheer,” to be felt as nature’s encouragement.

 

 

The Boy Who is Crazy About Flower (Borim Press), winner of the Special Prize (Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Award), expands simple observation into sensory immersion and an experience of time through a rhythm of close-up views that look closely into the story, and wide shots that step back, combined with the carefully designed tempo of page turns. Minimal text, the delicate balance of color, line, and blank space, the texture and bleed of paper, and even the binding method all shape the atmosphere of the page, quietly whispering to the reader: “Take your time.” Yet, the essence of this work lies not in the flower itself, but in how the act of loving something becomes, in the end, a process of learning the order of life. Positioned at the boundary between traditional Korean painting and book art, the work also has strong potential to expand into a crossover edition.

 

 

When Play Becomes Power: Critical Literacy

 

Come In (Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd.), the winner of the Rookie of the Year Award, is a bold work that depicts, with suspense, how a predator exploits the rules to lure the weak. A wolf entices the other animals into a “jump-rope game,” declaring, “Follow the rules and live. Break them and die.” As the scenes progress, the animals disappear one by one while the wolf’s belly grows larger. Yet a twist awaits: the wolf becomes ensnared in its own deception. The book prompts readers to visually deduce the answers to questions such as “Who was turning the rope?” and “Why did the children disappear?” Ultimately, it shows how “play” can become a mechanism of authority and naturally invokes “critical literacy,” engaging themes of power and control, the language of deception, and an individual’s safety within a group.

 

 

The Significance of the “Korea Picture Book Award”

 

The mechanism that gathers and articulates this current landscape of Korean picture books into an institutional language is precisely the “Korea Picture Book Award.” Its purpose is not to compete with prestigious international awards, but to formalize the distinctive strengths of Korean picture books as a public standard - verified, visualized, and spread each year. Through a pathway that links creation, selection, archiving (K-Book), and introduction (K-Book Trends), the award’s experiments in form and in inclusive design are shared simultaneously with both the Korean market and international audiences. The development over the past two decades, from a school-centered reading culture to an experimental period combining design, editing, and research, is now being consolidated and updated annually through the “Korea Picture Book Award,” as an “annual benchmark” for Korean picture books.

 

 

The outcomes of the “Korea Picture Book Award” are clear for each player in the market. For authors, it encourages new attempts - such as larger formats, special bookbinding, and nonfiction grounded in research and reportage - while also providing momentum for their following works. Readers, regardless of age, language, or reading level, can experience more frequent multisensory reading. In addition to learning through classrooms, libraries, and museums, they can encounter these works again in exhibition programs. For publishers, the award serves as a reliable marker for an integrated flow of rights proposals, educational programs, and exhibition planning. It also enables them to reorganize and present their titles thematically, covering local heritage, ecology, silent narratives, and more, thus extending the lifespan of their backlist. Ultimately, these achievements translate into cultural capacity. K-picture books, read, seen, and produced as public cultural assets, connect naturally with city branding, cultural heritage, and civic education, while serving as annually updated international reference points for overseas editors. In short, the “Korea Picture Book Award” is more than a prize for outstanding works; it is a public platform that standardizes the language and sensibility of Korean picture books each year, driving domestic growth and steadily advancing their presence in global markets.

 

 

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Written by Kim Min-Hwa (Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at Shinhan University, Chair of the Jury of the 2025 Korea Picture Book Award)